"We believe online sharing is broken. And even awkward ... We think connecting with other people is a basic human need. We do it all the time in real life, but our online tools are rigid. They force us into buckets — or into being completely public ... Real life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software.”

Yes, it has been hard to get sharing into software. That's why Facebook was created 7 seven years ago. That's why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been trotting around the world for the past 5 years telling everyone that the company's mission is to facilitate "sharing." That's why Facebook is now used by nearly 700 million people worldwide. That's why Facebook is basically subsuming the Internet.

(With the latter, of course, being the real reason Google is launching +).

No doubt, Google thinks that its new social network is radically different--and radically better--than all the social networks that have come before, including Facebook.

But the language Google is using to introduce the service still seems bizarrely out of touch.

If the product really is that much better than Facebook, and Twitter, and Delicious, and GroupMe, and the other companies Google appears to be attacking, why not just say so? Why pretend that you've invented something completely new and sound like you've been living in a box for 7 years?

(One answer is that Google is not speaking to tech folks--it's speaking to the mass market. But the mass market clued into Facebook three years ago)

What Google's language sounds like, in fact, is what Microsoft's language has sounded like whenever it has rolled out an Internet product over the past 15 years. (And we know where all of Microsoft's announcements have gotten them...)

I've been to so many big earth-shaking events from BigTechCo's -- today's Google thing is making me yawn, while my eyes glaze over in boredom.

Here's how products like this are conceived:

1. We need to kill Facebook.

2. What will we do.

3. It can't just be Facebook.

4. No one will use that.

5. It has to be better.

6. It has to be something only we can do.

7. Some place where we have the advantage.

8. Something people have no choice but to use.

So if you're Microsoft in 1999, you bake it into Windows.

If you're Google in 2011, you bake it into search.

In short, at least judging from the rhetoric used to launch the product, Google has given people little reason to think that the launch of + will be any different from the launches of its other social products, such as Wave and Buzz (Wave is dead and Buzz might as well be dead). And the folks at Facebook must be rolling their eyes.

Recommended For You

The Board Room

Editors' Picks

I don't think it's embarrassing. I saw the video demos and they look very promising. They took all of Facebook's failings and they improved on them. Their problem is people are shallow by nature. they go by what's on the surface and google plus doesn't look very beautiful. Google tries to make everything look like the google home page and that doesn't work for everything. They need better aesthetician on their team.

They need to add developers to the program to make games and such (because people love to waste time) and they will be OK. They may not kill facebook, but they have a decent shot at making waves. And who knows 3 years from now, you will be Facebook who. lol

I have two separate issues with this article, the first is with the tone and the second is with the substance.

Speaking to the tone, I would say that it comes off as strangely aggressive and filled with hopeful schadenfreude. Specifically, I would think that a "deeply embarrassing" launch would have either been judged by history as a clear failure or was blatantly botched in some manner. As the launch is all of 90 minutes old, history can't have judged it yet. And, to my eye, their blog post was clear and professional, devoid of hoopla, and interesting. Where is the "deep embarrassment" in that?

Regarding the substance, the article seemed very anxious to dismiss the product. There are some interesting features in Google+ that Facebook doesn't include (Sparks, Huddle), and there are some other UI elements that make accessing content easier than navigating to Facebook. On that last point, I'd love if I could see Facebook notifications within my Gmail or Reader window; with Google+ I can.

This isn't to say that Google+ will be the torpedo that sinks Facebook. All I'm saying is that this article seemed oddly enthusiastic about trashing a new product that deserves thoughtful attention. And, before dismissing it as a pathetic failure, it would also probably help if you had used the product.

I'm emotional about this. Google is filled with brilliant people. I expect better from them.

This is about the launch, not the product. At first glance, the product looks like a "greatest hits of 10 years of social." If they can find a way to work it into the Google experience without forcing people to sign up for it, maybe it can work.